Friday, April 28, 2006

Heaven (that's how we knew).

High school USA, mid-eighties. Someone much cooler takes pity on you and introduces you to the Velvet Underground. Also Townsend’s Lifehouse, but you don’t hold that against him. Somehow you find your way to Talking Heads and New Order. You’re still taping “Greatest American Hero” off of the radio, though. (Believe it or not.) Cut to college in New England, late eighties. All you hear is U2 and PE and CSNY. One day you catch a local live show. The unknown opening band, also local, is catchy enough. You buy the EP. You catch them a few more times, sometimes accidentally, sometimes not. You buy the t-shirt. You buy the first full-length. You decide: THIS is the band I will take as my own. It’s a good fit. You are hopelessly unaware of any band backstory, which is relatively rich. It doesn’t matter. You buy the next album; it has a gatefold. This feels like the beginning of the end. Then the last gasp on a major label; graduation; oblivion.